Party versus Faction in the Reformed Presidential Nomination System

Political scientists have devoted vastly more attention to general presidential elections than to party nominations for president. This emphasis might be reasonable if parties could be counted on to nominate generic representatives of their traditions. But it is clear that they cannot. Since the party reforms of the 1970s, regulars like Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and Al Gore have sometimes won fairly easy nominations, but outsider candidates like Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean have made strong runs or even won. 2016 has produced extremes of both types: ultimate regular Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side and far outsider Donald Trump on the Republican side. It seems, moreover, that party regulars are having more difficulty in recent cycles than they did in the 1980s and 1990s. There is therefore some urgency to the question: when and why do party regulars tend to win nominations?

We examine this question from the point of view of two well-known studies, Nelson Polsby’s Consequences of Party Reform and our own, The Party Decides. The former explains why incentives built into the reformed system of presidential nominations make outsider and factional candidates like Trump likely. The latter argues that, following the factional nominations of the 1970s, party leaders learned to steer nominations to insider favorites. This article uses the logic of these studies to argue that major trends over the past two decades – the rise of new political media, the flood of early money into presidential nominations, and the conflict among party factions – have made it easier for factional candidates and outsiders to challenge elite control of nominations.

Patrick A. Stewart, University of Arkansas,FayettevilleAustin D. Eubanks, University of Arkansas,FayettevilleJason Miller, University of Arkansas,Fayetteville

The 2016 Republican Party presidential primary debates were unprecedented in the amount of media and public interest generated. Substantially driven by curiosity about reality television celebrity Donald Trump, the initial debates hosted by FOX News and CNN both reflected and validated interest in his candidacy while proffering attention to a full slate of more traditional presidential contenders in front of boisterous audiences. This study considers these audiences’ response. Whether applause, laughter, booing, or combinations thereof, these group utterances provide a reliable metric by which insights may be derived concerning partisan attitudes towards Trump and the other candidates, as well as the unity of the Republican Party. Findings suggest that the debate setting in concert with the demographics of the in-person audience may well have influenced initial response to the candidates and as a result have subtle yet lingering consequences for the 2016 presidential election.

A Not-So-Calamitous Compact–A Response to DeWitt and Schwartz

The author of the National Popular Vote interstate compact refutes criticisms raised by opponents Darin DeWitt and Thomas Schwartz. The National Popular Vote compact would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The article explains how the vast majority of voters and states are made irrelevant in presidential elections because of state winner-take-all statutes. The article provides legal authorities to refute the various invalid legal arguments against the compact and data to refute the various invalid political arguments.

A Calamitous Compact

Darin DeWitt, California State University, Long BeachThomas Schwartz, University of California, Los Angeles

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (joined so far by ten states and D.C.) would replace the current presidential-election system, with nationwide plurality rule, and it would do so without amending the Constitution. Reasons abound to reject this proposal.

One problem is that plurality rule is anti-majoritarian. In typical three-way contests it often rejects candidates who beat every rival by a majority – candidates which the current system actually has a tendency to favor. Historical examples of electoral votes reversing popular votes have been misreported – 2000 was the only clear case – and never has a popular majority been reversed.

Another problem is that complaints against the current system, even if sound, can be remedied at less cost by other means.

The compact would open the door to mischief of several sorts. One is legal instability: any state could withdraw from the compact whenever a partisan majority wished, even late in an election year. Another is sabotage by Republican electors whose party opposes the compact on principle. Worse is the increased likelihood of very close popular votes. They would necessitate nationwide recounts, a practical impossibility, and a legal one too, inasmuch as non-compact states could not be compelled to cooperate. Then there is the increased incentive to manipulate vote counts and the reduced incentive to make broad appeals to diverse segments of the electorate. Besides those consequences there is a constitutional obstacle: interstate compacts of this sort require Congressional consent.

Twitter Taunts and Tirades: Negative Campaigning in the Age of Trump

What drives candidates to “go negative” and against which opponents? Using a unique dataset consisting of all inter-candidate tweets by the seventeen Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 primaries, we assess predictors of negative affect online. Twitter is a free platform, and candidates therefore face no resource limitations when using it; this makes Twitter a wellspring of information about campaign communications strategy given a level playing-field. Moreover, Twitter’s 140-character limit acts as a liberating constraint, leading candidates to issue sound bites ready for potential distribution not only online, but also through conventional media, as tweets become news. We find that tweet negativity and overall rate of tweeting increases as the campaign season progresses. Unsurprisingly, the front-runner and eventual nominee, Donald Trump, sends and receives the most negative tweets and is more likely than his opponents to strike out against even those opponents who are polling poorly. However, candidates overwhelmingly “punch upwards” against those ahead of them in the polls, and this pattern is hardly limited to attacks against those near the top. Sixty of 136 candidate pairs are characterized by lopsided negativity in one direction and only one of these sixty involves a clearly higher status candidate on the offensive.

Definitely Not Moralistic: State Political Culture and Support for Donald Trump in the Race for the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination

by Patrick I. Fisher, Seton Hall University

This study analyzes the important role state political culture played in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Donald Trump appealed to demographically distinct types of voters in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries and caucuses that varied considerably from previous Republican presidential nominees. Relative to the demographics of the electorate, however, this study finds that state political culture played an outsized role in determining Donald Trump’s relative level of support in a particular state. When state demographics are utilized in ordinary least squares regression models as independent variables with state partisanship and Daniel Elazar’s state political culture typology, political culture proves to be a significant determinant of the level of support given to Trump in a state. States that are characterized by a more moralistic political culture are considerably more likely to have given Trump a lower share of the vote while voters in states that are characterized by a more traditionalistic or individualistic culture were more likely to support Trump.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Donald

by Diana C. Mutz, University of Pennsylvania

Inthis study, I examine the relevance of Harry Potter consumption–whether reading Harry Potter books or viewing Harry Potter movies–to attitudes toward Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president in 2016. Although few fictional stories have had audiences large enough to potentially register changes in public opinion, the Potter series is unusual in this regard. Further, numerous analogies have been drawn between characters in these stories and real world political figures.

Using multivariate models and panel data, results suggest that the lessons of the Harry Potter series have influenced public reactions to Trump as well levels of support for punitive policies and tolerance of groups outside the American mainstream. This pattern occurs for reading Harry Potter books, but not for viewing Harry Potter movies. The more Potter books one has read, the lower are one’s evaluations of Trump. These patterns persist even after taking into account many other differences between Potter fans and non-fans. The messages of tolerance for difference and opposition to violence and punitive policies appear to be influential in altering Harry Potter readers’ policy views, as well as their support for Trump himself, even after controlling for their impact on policy attitudes.

Social Desirability, Hidden Biases, and Support for Hillary Clinton

An emerging consensus suggests that women are underrepresented in government because of biases in the recruitment process instead of biases at the ballot box. These results, however, are largely for legislative offices, and research suggests that “male” characteristics are generally associated with executive positions like the presidency. At the same time, some research demonstrates social desirability masks gender biases against women who seek the highest office in the land. We use the historic candidacy of Hillary Clinton to examine if she faces hidden biases in either the primaries or the general election. Two different methods for uncovering hidden biases embedded in national surveys demonstrate small hidden biases that are likely electorally inconsequential.